I am 40

Today I turn 40.

40 is a big number. It is unimaginably bigger than 39. I have no idea why this should be so. The quantum step from yesterday to the 21st of December 2005 should have no more meaning than any other daily increment. Yet it does. At 39, there is room for childishness, for youthful exuberance, for folly. At 40, such behavioural latitude disappears.

Life doesn’t begin at 40 as such. However, 40 feels like this is the age I spent all my life preparing for. This is the decade in which I make my life mean something. This is the age where I stop smoking, swearing and generally goofing off.

You’re waiting for me to say “sod that” or the equivalent. I can’t. There must come a time when we leave behind childish things and become men. 40 is that age. There must come a time when we heed consequence. We don’t become crippled by indecision though - on the contrary, we must begin to act very decisively, very often, for that time when we could pontificate and prevaricate has gone. Now there is no time for that. Time is a luxury that is not just in short supply, it has vanished in the four decades I just shrugged off.

Now is when all that I learned must be put to some use. For the benefit of others, for the benefit of myself.

It certainly isn’t a time to party, but fun needs to be applied to one’s life like a scalpel. Surgically, precisely and in measured, controlled cuts. Applied joy.

Since life is so fleeting (I’m not beckoning the grave, there was a time I thought as I went in and out of hospital endlessly that I would not live to see this day) the time has come to enjoy and savour every moment. It’s all a bonus now. I’ve experienced more than I ever thought I had the capacity to understand, bear or enjoy. I’ve been around the world, over and over, in every swanky hotel, in every fancy restaurant, in every major city and I’m happiest in London.

My mum is still around, bless her. Strong, unbelievably so. She has a strength that Maggie Thatcher herself would envy. I am sure I will hear from her.

I wish my wonderful, strong, patient, caring, loving, wise and inspiring father had been alive this day. Then again, when I look in the mirror, I wonder if he still is. I hope I can live up to your hopes and dreams Papa. You were the best dad I could ever have asked for. I hope I can make you proud of me. I hope I can be happy so that you can be at rest. If you can read blogs wherever you are, I want you to know that I love you very much.

Now that I have become a man, how do I be one?